Guns have changed everything, especially childhood

Ilearned to shoot on the family ranch, as ranch kids are wont to do. My gun education was furthered at a Catholic summer camp, and I still have my paper target proving my marksmanship. Hunter safety classes, and calm, clear-eyed common sense. is was the rural approach to guns I grew up with.

en it’s a story we all know: Guns became politicized. Polarized. Lobbyized. Humans are good at inventing things, so guns got more militarized as they turned into weapons of mass destruction. Our laws, sadly, didn’t keep up, because humans can also move quite slowly.

en, I had children, and suddenly, active-shooter drills were part of their curriculum. And then, on Valentine’s Day 2018, parents across Fort Collins, Colorado, received emails informing us that our children had been in a lockdown drill at roughly the same time that 17 children were being killed in Florida.

My brain fritzed out with confusion: Here a drill, but in Florida, children were being mowed down. Relief, and yet also great grief. Other mothers were getting di erent news.

My kids came home, stunned, and recounted their drill instructions, which included advice such as: “If you must ght to save your life, ght with all your might, using anything within reach as a weapon.”

Yes, kids, please ght with all your might against a grownup with a semiautomatic.

What a sad curriculum. What a sad country. Many of us know this. Many of us keep saying the same thing over and over, and a few loud voices keep pushing back. Why even discuss interpretations of the murkily written